Dear Dr. Johnson, I own a copy of The Rambler, Volume III,
printed in 1798 on the kind of paper
that makes us value the print upon it. My grandfather
first told me about you; now amid slogans
I turn the pages to find your sentences
are often long enough to tie up with a knot
the superficial arguments of our age
masquerading as discourse.
Power and superiority are so flattering and delightful, that, fraught
with temptation, and exposed to danger, as they are, scarcely any
virtue is so cautious, or any prudence so timorous, as to decline them.
You couldn’t sell that on the street today, not on a Tuesday
and not on a Saturday the way you did. I’m not looking
to cloud the issues with language, but to find
some pleasure in the way ideas ripen
into words. Politicians like the ones whose meanings
have no binding power, like change or choice.
There’s no difference between their speeches
and the nightly ads between segments of the TV news
for allergy pills or stool softener. They just want
to sell us the idea of comfort. I doubt that you’d make it
as a commentator on the shows we have in which
it isn’t enough to serve sound bites, but we get the content
chewed up and ready to swallow. You’d take a question
and respond: There is nothing more common
among this torpid generation than murmurs and complaints;
murmurs at uneasiness, which only vacancy and suspicion
expose them to feel, and complaints of distresses, which it is
in their own power to remove. Some elegance might help us
disagree when we must. My grandfather appreciated
the way you wrote. He was just what we call working class,
which is to say he liked his beer and didn’t own
a lot. He didn’t learn about you in college
because he never went to one. It was simply the language
that proved that thinking isn’t a matter of class,
it is everyone’s right to conclude It is necessary
to distinguish our own interest from that of others; and that distinction will
perhaps assist us in fixing the just limits
of caution and adventurousness.
                        

Dear William, The first miles north
from Manchester Victoria
ran through a hell of brick and factory smoke.
Trains carried hope to the countryside. By Kendal
I was buoyed by the sight of a clear sky. The local line
to Windermere ran smoothly
through an England that belonged to the world
not to industry, or so I thought
until I bought the book of your poems at Grasmere
and discovered your horror set in verse
at the prospect of a railway
on your most beloved land. Rash assault you called it,
and called on us to share the passion of a just disdain.
I’m writing now to share some,
to tell you how the ice is warming and the handshakes
of men securing deals
for oil are colder than ever; how hunters
call it sport when they’re the only
side that can win; how advertising tells us
how much more we need and the space to grow it
diminishes as we watch; how forests
are chewed up by machines; how rivers
are stolen from their beds; how yellow monsters without hearts
plough the desert open
until nothing remains of it but the howl and the coo
when foxes and doves nest
in our memories. And I know what would sicken you most
is that so little was done, that so few human beings
would demand that we change, that our laws
would be written in smoke. But just watch, William, how quickly
those in power meet to proclaim there is a crisis.
No, not for the planet, William, only
when their money begins to melt away
do they take action. I suppose, to quote you again,
they are weighing the mischief with the promised gain.
                        

Dear Rene, The matter-of-factness
with which you presented audacious
juxtapositions is what shocks me today
after looking at your paintings
for all these years. When a comb is bigger
than a bed, an apple fills a room
or a rock floats above the incoming tide
what is left to imagine? Not monsters.
Not enemies or terrorists
smuggling their hatred through our borders
when we have more than enough
of our own to go around
without them. You showed the way down
into the cellar where the mind
stores its hopes, fears, and trivia,
packaged and marked with all the wrong
labels. I can’t tell any more
why leaving the house makes me anxious
and as soon as it’s too late to back
I’m convinced I left water running
or the door unlocked. My subconscious
sends the message that it’s urgent, that I need
to get back, that I still haven’t finished
washing the dishes from breakfast
and even the Barbarians at the gates
don’t matter as much as the faucet
that drips, drips, drips to remind me
it’s a dangerous world and Oh God my mail
is being intercepted at a port of entry
I’m on a list I’m being watched my housekeeping
is being examined very closely I must slow down
stop take a deep breath consider
the labels on the boxes. Nothing is really the way
it seems. You knew that. When you painted a pipe
you underlined the fact with
Ceci n’est pas une pipe.